At home with …Laura Garcia & Georgiana

Design Consultant
& daughter, Georgiana | New York, NY

In a minimalist-meets-luxe apartment high above Central Park, Laura and Diego Garcia are the picture of familial bliss. The French-Brazilian designer gained instant success in 2004 with her ready-to-wear line Abaeté. The collection was scooped up by Bergdorf Goodman and Intermix, and eventually turned into a lucrative collaboration with Payless. After becoming a mom, Garcia shifted her focus to the world of interiors and now works with the artist Bernard Figueroa to create cast bronze lighting pieces. Together with her musician husband, she raises their trilingual baby in an elegant space sprinkled with art, books stacked floor-to-ceiling, and family photos. When they’re not on tour with Diego, mother and child explore the city together—frequenting the very same spots that Laura, who grew up just a few blocks away, treasured as a kid.Georgiana, 15 months, August 2011

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At home with...Laura Garcia & Georgiana

“When I finally get done with the day, I just want to hang with my husband, get dinner and go to bed. With the exception of magazines and the internet, I never read anymore—I haven’t read a book since Gigi was born! It’s such a huge contrast to when I was pregnant and the days go by really slowly. I read so much then.”

A Few of Her Favorite Things...

1. “Speaking French with Georgiana

2. Picking out her clothes in the morning

3. Going to our little playgroup every week

4. Cuddling and kissing

5. Seeing how close she is with my husband. That makes me so happy…”

Inconvenient Charms

“When she was first born, we lived in a beautiful apartment that we loved in the West Village. These are the kind of things you never think of before you have a child: Since her room was all the way across the other side of the apartment, we couldn’t hear her when she cried. So for the first five months, we had her in a little bassinet in our room, and our baby nurse was sleeping alone in Gigi’s room. Eventually we had to move. All the charm of the West Village— the high ceilings, old rustic wood floors, and fire places—all of a sudden started to bother me.”

Hope Atherton painting

Little Girls

“I wanted a girl so bad. It’s amazing to see how beautiful Gigi’s relationship is with her father.”

For Kids (clothes)...

“I buy all her little tops at Bonpoint—I love the liberty prints, and the lace detail. I get everything a little big so she can wear them forever. Most of her pants come from GapBaby.”

Born & Bred

“Alaïa [the dog] and Gigi are best friends. They’re actually very close like sisters—they really love each other. The dog came first, but we knew we would have kids eventually so we did a lot of research on which breeds are great with kids. A French bull dog seemed to be the best choice.”

Details

Finishing Touches

Her Own Person

“She’s just her own little creature. My husband and I look at her and think, ‘Who is she? Who’s this person that we made?’ She has her own personality and her own thing going—it doesn’t come from Diego or me.”

Texture

Baby Builder

The Pregnancy

“My pregnancy was perfect. Other than the fact that I got really fat—I gained 40 pounds. As much as we like to say it doesn’t, your body does change a little bit after pregnancy. I’m not the same as I was before. I’m too busy with Gigi to take care of myself the same way I did before. And when I’m at the gym, I just want to come home and be with my baby.”

Multilingual Mama

“Aside from the baby nurse when she was first born, we haven’t had much help. We just hired a nanny who’s Brazilian—having her has really changed our lives. I like that she can speak Portuguese to Gigi. I try to speak French to her, but it’s hard because Diego doesn’t speak it. They’re like little sponges, though. The majority of her words are in English, but then out of nowhere she’ll say, ” “Can I have some agua?” The rest of her ‘words’ are animal sounds.”

Travel by Bjorn

“The subway is by far the best way to travel around the city—I just leave the stroller at home and take the Bjorn. Cabs can be so unsafe, and you have to lug around a car seat. I just hope that by the time she’s too heavy to carry on the subway, she’ll be ready to walk.”

For Kids (gear)...

Art Appreciation

Live & Learn

“My most humbling parenting experience was when Georgiana had explosive diarrhea on my girlfriend’s brand new couch. It just soaked through her clothes and onto to the couch and all over me. My friend doesn’t have children, so for her it was a little devastating. You sort of get used to that stuff with a baby, and just say to yourself, “It happens, there’s nothing you can do about it.’ I left her house and just broke down laughing with my husband. I had to send her flowers the next day.”

Thick Skins

“I love everything about raising Gigi in New York, especially because I grew up here, too. I love the city and all it’s craziness—it makes kids tough and gives them an edge.”

Rituals & Routines

“It’s close to impossible to have a routine for yourself when you have a baby. I was such a routine person before she was born—I had a time to do everything. Then she came along and I worked so hard to put her on a routine. All of a sudden, I come second, and my life revolves around her.”

Little Fashionista

“Her dad got her this little Bonpoint dress when she was one-month-old (it was her first dress), and she still wears it as a shirt. All her little tops are actually dresses. I used to buy her these beautiful dresses when she was three-months-old, but she never wore them because they’re like little blobs at that age. They’re the cutest shirts now. If they’re too tight under the arms, I’ll just cut a little bit to make it fit.”

Fellow Traveler

“We travel with her all the time. She was in LA last month, and then she stayed with her grandparents in Florida while Diego and I went to China. It was the first time we left her—I was devastated. After two days, I started to feel better. I find it really scary to get on a plane with a baby. It’s like a boxing match—grabbing everything, trying to avoid a major spill. It’s not like it used to be when I’d get on a plane and relax.”

Firsts

“She just started walking yesterday. My husband was out, and I was with his sister when she all of sudden took her first three steps. (We’ll pretend we both saw it). She’s been almost walking for three month now—it’s such a slow process, we thought she was never going to walk. Now’s she’s so excited about it.”

Style Surprises

“The white carpet actually doesn’t show much, believe it or not. You can’t imagine how many times she’s thrown up on it.”

Time Flies

Elizabeth Taylor painting by Russell Young

City Geography

“We definitely miss downtown. We don’t know how long we’ll be up here. We love that my parents are so close— they’ll take care of Gigi.”

Copy Cats

“I don’t let her watch T.V., but she watches it sometimes with her dad. She’s obsessed with Dora. My friend actually had to stop her daughter from watching it because she was starting to talk like Dora.”

Beauty...

“Really good shampoo: a splurge like Phyto is a must because it makes my hair instantly shiny, and I have no time or patience to do anything other than wash.Green juice everyday: with the lack of sleep, heightened level of stress during the day, and so little time to myself, I have to make sure I treat my body well from the inside out.”

Lifelong Friends

“A mom that I have always looked up to is my own mother. She’s always made an effort to be a friend. I can tell her everything, and she really is my best friend. I hope will be that for Gigi one day.”